Honeybees deserve a home, too

The street supervisor of Duryea, near Scranton, deserves recognition for an unusual rescue.

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Posted Mar. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Posted Mar. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM

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The street supervisor of Duryea, near Scranton, deserves recognition for an unusual rescue.

The supervisor is responsible for saving a hive of bees that not long ago would have been killed with pesticides. The hive had taken over an old tree in a back alley of the town, creating a nuisance in summer for people trying to use their yards. On March 1, an electric utility, a bee expert and the Duryea supervisor cooperated to remove the tree, moving the section containing the hive to a better location.

The effort may seem over the top, but it was worthwhile given a still-misunderstood problem called colony collapse disorder, which has devastated honeybee populations worldwide. Honeybees play a critical role in crop pollination, ever more important as the world's human population continues to rise.

And here's another tidbit that illustrates how bees actually share a human craving: Bees can recognize caffeine; they collect pollen from coffee trees and from lemon and orange tree blossoms, which also contain it. And they respond differently to it. A recent report in the journal Science states that honeybees that collected sugar nectar with caffeine were three times better able to remember the flowers a day later than bees that were feeding on sugar alone.